Pour rice into a pan and briefly rinse with water clean. Strain well.
¼ cup Short Grain Rice
Pour milk to rice and keep over a medium heat setting.
1½ cup Milk
Stir in salt and sugar.
pinch Salt, 1 Tablespoon Sugar
Cook down your rice, stirring occasionally so that nothing sticks at the bottom. Always keep over a manageable medium heat setting. It should cook down steadily and bubble a bit, but not vigorously. The rice should be cooked through and appear sticky and thicker when done.
For the Vermicelli Worms
In a second pan, add the vermicelli noodles.
½ cup Vermicelli Noodles
Stir milk, butter, vanilla extract, sugar and red food coloring into the noodles.
1½ cup Milk, 1 Tablespoon Butter, 2-3 drops Vanilla Extract, 2 Tablespoon Sugar, 2-5 drops Red Food Coloring
Keep over a medium heat setting and mix it all well.
Cook down vermicelli and stir occasionally so that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. The heat needs to be regulated and set at a medium to low level. The dessert can bubble a bit because it needs to cook down, but not all too wild. Yet, the noodles will thicken faster and easier than the rice.
To put the Dessert together
Take both pans from the heat when cooked and pour the vermicelli into the rice.
Briefly and roughly mix the noodles and rice together. Not too much because you want that the rice remains on the whiter side to make it appear like maggots and the noodles should still look like worms.
Plate up sweet vermicelli and rice pudding into a small serving bowl.
Sprinkle chocolate or cocoa powder over that to make it appear like mud.
2 Teaspoon Dark Cacao Chocolate Unsweetened
Enjoy this Halloween dessert still hot or cold.
Video
Notes
Vermicelli noodles should be thin and, if possible, short (2-3 inches long) if you get only the long ones, break them simply apart into smaller pieces. I used wheat vermicelli which you get in a Mexican store for broth or the Indian subcontinent vermicelli used for desserts or the short Italian soup broth vermicelli such as the Filini vermicelli. You can also use Asian rice vermicelli or sweet potato or taro vermicelli, they all make for great worm look-alikes. I recommend getting vermicelli that are most common in your neck of the woods.
Rice should be a shorter rice variety such as Arborio because these turn out creamier and somewhat sticky and that adds to the illusion of maggots. Otherwise, look out for specified rice pudding rice varieties (it will be mentioned on the buying label).
You can substitute or add ingredients as per our recommendations. Please look out in the post for “Flavor Variations”.
This Halloween pudding isn't that sweet. You can choose to make it sweeter.
Tip: The rice and vermicelli can be cooked side by side simultaneously. So while the rice is cooking in one pan, prepare the vermicelli on the side. That way you can save cooking time. The 30-minute cooking time splits into about 15 minutes for the rice and 15 minutes for the vermicelli.